Georgia O'Keeffe/Transcript
Transcript Text reads: The Mysteries of Life with Tim and Moby. A boy, Tim, and a robot, Moby, explore a New Mexico canyon. TIM: Breathtaking, isn't it? Gah! Moby is wearing an ram skull. He hands Tim a letter. Tim reads from the typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, Who was the artist Georgia O'Keeffe? From, Smurfett. MOBY: Beep. TIM: No, silly. Georgia was her name, not where she was born. Georgia O'Keeffe was an American artist known for her paintings of landscapes, flowers, and animal bones. During a career that spanned most of the twentieth century, she became one of the country's most influential and celebrated artists. An image shows Georgia O'Keeffe. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, O'Keeffe felt restricted by realism, in which art depicts the world we see with our eyes. She was fascinated by abstraction, a more personal way of looking at the world. An image shows two abstract paintings, one with overlapping color blocks and one that is a landscape. The paintings employ loose brushstrokes to give the works a dream-like quality. TIM: So she came up with a unique style that combined the two, blending realistic styles with abstract elements. An image shows "Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills". In the background is a landscape with dry, rolling hills under cloudy skies. In the foreground are a huge animal skull with horns and a white flower. TIM: That's why she's usually classified as a modernist, a member of an artistic movement that flourished during the first few decades of the twentieth century. In general, modernism broke away from European artistic traditions and experimented with new techniques and ideas. MOBY: Beep. TIM: O'Keeffe was born in 1887 in a farmhouse near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. A U.S. map shows Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. TIM: As a little girl, she knew she wanted to be an artist, and she showed great promise in the art lessons she took with her sisters. An image shows a young O'Keeffe creating a still life painting. TIM: She continued her art education in schools in Chicago, New York, and Virginia, and eventually became an art teacher herself. An image shows O'Keeffe as an art teacher instructing students as they paint a still life. TIM: But she didn't really develop her own style until 1915, when she created a series of innovative charcoal drawings. Images show three of O'Keeffe's abstract charcoal drawings: "Drawing XIII", "Early Abstraction", and "Drawing No. 8 - Special". MOBY: Beep. TIM: Oh yeah, you're right. It does look like a landscape. Those are mountains, those are trees, and, and that's a river. Tim points to these areas on "Drawing XIII". TIM: Anyway, O'Keeffe's bold lines and subtle tones caught the eye of Alfred Stieglitz, a photographer and art gallery owner in New York. An image shows Alfred Stieglitz. TIM: In 1916, Stieglitz put 10 of O'Keeffe's drawings on display in his gallery. An image shows people viewing O'Keeffe's drawings in Stieglitz's gallery. TIM: He also convinced her to leave her teaching job, and in 1918 she moved to New York City to become a full-time artist. The two fell in love and got married in 1924. An animation shows O'Keeffe and Stieglitz holding hands. Hearts float around them. TIM: Throughout the 1920s, O'Keeffe split her time between the city and a summer house at nearby Lake George. An animation shows O'Keeffe painting the landscape at Lake George. TIM: During that time, she created a series of oil paintings that are among her most important works. She painted extreme close-ups of flowers, creating an effect that was almost like looking through a magnifying glass. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Yeah, at first, you're not quite sure what you're looking at. Side by side images show two of O'Keeffe's paintings of flowers: "Petunia No. 2" and "Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1". TIM: By focusing on the tiniest details of individual petals, O'Keeffe made abstract paintings out of realistic images. One of the flower paintings is shown more closely. TIM: This magnification effect was groundbreaking and helped establish O'Keeffe as a major star in the art world. But despite her fame and success, she soon found herself searching for new sources of artistic inspiration. An animation shows O'Keeffe with a thought bubble that shows her imagining new inspiration sources. M: So in 1929, she took a trip here, to sunny New Mexico. She immediately fell in love with the natural beauty of the Southwest, its open skies, jagged rocks, and pristine deserts. She tried to capture the vivid colors of the landscape, often using the same close-up technique she used in her flower paintings. An image shows an O'Keeffe desert landscape painting called "Red and Yellow Cliffs". TIM: She also found a new favorite object to paint: the animal skulls scattered throughout the desert terrain. An image shows animal skulls in the desert. MOBY: Beep. Moby is wearing the animal skull again and is holding a scythe. TIM: Actually, O'Keeffe saw these bones as symbols of beauty, not death. She was fascinated by their unusual shapes and sun-bleached surfaces, and she included them in many of her paintings from New Mexico. Side by side images show two O'Keeffe paintings of animal skulls: "Cows Skull: Red, White, and Blue" and "Cow's Skull with Calico Roses". TIM: She loved to place larger-than-life skulls smack in the middle of natural settings, creating a dreamlike effect. Images show O'Keeffe's paintings that use skulls in natural settings, some with flowers. The paintings include "Summer Days", "Mule's Skull with Pink Poinsettia", ''"Ram's Head, White Hollyhock-Hills"'' TIM: For the next twenty years, she returned to New Mexico almost every summer to paint. And in 1949, three years after Stieglitz died, she moved there permanently. An image shows O'Keeffe outside of her home in New Mexico. TIM: Though she continued to work and travel over the next several decades, newer styles of art made her stuff seem, well, a bit outdated. Then in 1970, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York recognized her in a retrospective, a special exhibition that looks back on an artist's career. An image shows the Whitney Museum. TIM: It revived interest in O'Keeffe among a younger generation of art lovers. An image shows people viewing O'Keeffe's retrospective in the museum. TIM: And for the growing feminist movement, her success as a female artist symbolized women's progress in twentieth-century America. MOBY: Beep. TIM: Well, even though her eyesight began to fail in 1971, she continued to paint until her death in 1986. An animation shows an elderly O'Keeffe creating a painting. She fades out, but the painting remains. TIM: She was 98 years old when she died, leaving behind more than 2,000 paintings. A skeleton's leg taps Tim's legs. TIM: Gaaggh! Tim sees a ram skeleton. A cowbell sound effect is heard as Tim blinks his eyes and looks again; the ram skeleton has disappeared. MOBY: Beep. TIM: I... I think I could use some water. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts